A MAN managed to jump out of his vehicle with his dog seconds before it was engulfed in flames.
He then had to steer the burning Land Rover Discovery down a narrow one-way street lined with more than 12 parked cars, before he was helped by his boss.
Scott Baxter, 23, told the Tele today about the dramatic incident, which happened in Kirriemuir’s Duthie Street.
The slater was driving to work with his year-old cocker spaniel Orlo just before 7am.
He explained: “Just as I was approaching Kirrie I could see smoke coming up through the footwell of my car.
“It got pretty bad pretty quickly but I thought the best thing to do was to drive it straight to my boss Dave Simpson’s house in the Southmuir area of the town, as I wasn’t too far away at all.”
Scott said that as he drove into Dave’s street, however, things took a turn for the worse when the smoke thickened and began belching out of the car.
He then said flames appeared, adding: “I knew Orlo and I had to get out in a hurry but the car wouldn’t stop so I was aware I would have to keep it in a straight line even though it was well ablaze by this time.
“Poor Orlo didn’t have a clue what was going on — he really was in shock.”
After Scott jumped out he had to steer the car safely down the road.
He explained: “I couldn’t get my car to stop — nothing was working.
“So to get it away from all these other cars I had to lean in the window and steer it for the entire length of the road in case it crashed into anything else.
“It was awful, really scary. I reckon Orlo and I have had a pretty lucky escape. We could so easily have been so badly burned in the car.
“All the time I was pushing it down the street I was also terrified it was going to explode.
“It also crossed my mind that if it hit off any of the other cars we could have caused a whole street of cars to go on fire.
“It just doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Fortunately boss Dave spied the drama unfolding and rushed to help.
Dave, 49, said: “The car was engulfed in flames but we managed to push it onto my drive where we used buckets of water and my garden hose to start extinguishing the flames before the fire brigade arrived.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: “We were called out at 7.10am to a car on fire on Friday. An appliance from Kirriemuir attended and used a hoswereel jet to extinguish the fire. We left the scene at 7.28am.